Can an unused cable break in?

rodman999995,056 posts

06-13-2021
12:12pm

"When you hold the tester in your hand your body is ground." Been using those for decades and always believed that was the case. Thanks for the confirmation/insight/link (filling in the blanks)!

I would never use it to verify the circuit is de-energized if you are going to work on the circuit.

FWIW, the no contact voltage tester isn’t really connected between the hot and neutral or EGC, or any reference grounded object, of the circuit. There is not an actual connection from the source Hot wire and a return through the human body back to the source.
Without a closed circuit path how could there possibly be an electric charge flow, current.
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It is possible because you let it plugged in for a month and that runs current through the gear and the wires so you were doing a slow burn in you just did not realize it and all or the better because it sounds like you are happy with the outcome.

@jea48 -   " I would never use it to verify the circuit is de-energized if you are going to work on the circuit."  

     Never have.  Always figured: that's what my Fluke DMM was for.   My first DMM was an 8020B, if you remember those.     Bought that for my speaker/electronics shoppe, in the early Eighties.
 
     Most of what I've done in electrical (on and off/here and there/during a hard times) was industrial, 480-600V, Three Phase, in industrial machine (wire pulling) and plating environment (a fall-back, for me).    Lots of electronics, in the control systems, too (my primary forte).  

       Of course: If you've ever been around industrial plating equipment, you know about those rather large, 5mW, SCR Rectifiers.
 
                                    Some of that stuff can bite ya, pretty good!

@rvpiano- Sorry for the derailment (old fart, reminiscing)!